The Desk.

To her father, who has offended and confused me:

As with anything, there's an easy way and a hard way to do this, and you're just begging me to throw the easy way out the window. The easy way, which you so desperately want to be rid of, would involve me simply stopping by for a weekend, maybe three days, hang out, and not cause anybody any trouble. But since you seem to think I'm such a big threat, I might just have to prove you right. You could have just let me slip quietly through, and we would have all had some good clean fun, but if you want to believe certain things about me, I'll have to let you have them. Learn to trust me and I won't be any trouble, but if you want to believe I'm up to something, then I will be. This isn't even about her anymore; this is about you and me. This is about proving a point, and that means I'll take this to the wall and stop at nothing to bring the bow-hammer down on your backwards and ridiculous ideas. When I tried before, I was told you said you didn't want any of the males at the house unless they were a boyfriend. Apparently you assumed there would be certain business going down, and you didn't want that happening unless he was the boyfriend. But that seems to me backwards, as if you didn't want it going on in the first place, why would you ask for a relationship in which there is a precedent for it? What I mean is that a boyfriend is an automatic threat, at least much more so than a guy who's just a guy and may or may not be a potential threat. I am, as far as you know, just a guy, but if that's the way you want it, that's the way you'll get it. I wouldn't have thought to capitalize on the opportnity in the way you fear, but since you've put it in my head, and in fact requested me to usurp the position of the boyfriend, I might just have to take it. I wouldn't otherwise have take part in any of the particular business you're afraid of, but if you insist I take the title before setting foot in your home, then I'll have to take it, and I'll have to take all the rights and precedents that go along with it. I'll help show you just how wrong you are for placing trust in the establishment. As much as I hate the system, I'll work in it, and I'll use all its rules to show it for what it is and tear it down from inside. But that's only going to be a problem if you decide to insist on it.

The main problem is getting there in the first place. According to my interpretation of the information I've recieved, it's not boys you percieve as a threat; it's just me. I know this because when it comes to those two little inarticulate community college Christian boys, you not only don't object to them, you in do in fact promote them. But I don't blame you for not trusting me; I just want to know why you don't trust her. You're falling right into line with everybody else who has stepped in here, and nobody has even stood a fighting chance, so if you think you're any different just because of who you are, you're going to have to come up with something besides guilt trips. But just like everybody else, you have either placed a disproportionate amount of faith in my powers, or a shockingly low amount of faith in hers. Believe me, if that's what I was after I would have gone after an easier target or seven. There's different goals at stake here; you should know that. Either way I've done my job to market myself as a God among among you. If you care to prove me wrong in this respect, then put a little trust in my flaws and let me show I'm human. Let me show you that my powers are not absolute. Of course if you do, you'll be giving me exactly what I wanted in the first place, and I still win.

There's another thing you're forgetting, too, and that's that she's on my side. It's going to happen whether you like it or not, so you might as well get used to it. By the way, I heard about that threat to cut off the money, and I'm calling your bluff. There's nothing you'll do and there's nothing you can do, and since you're doing nothing to stop me, and in fact only pissing me off, with your religious bigotry and empty threats, I'm going to give you nothing but the trouble you're asking for. This is your last chance for the easy way where I'm still the drug-and-alcohol-free Dean's list honors program Eagle Scout good guy.

A comprehensive study I did on the people of Nepal gave me enormous insight into the traditions and lifestyles of the East, placing the ancient Himalayan nation at the top of my list. Then Senegal's 2002 first round victory over the defending World Cup champion French team put and held them at my number one spot for a long time, but now this rich West African culture has been overtaken. Go home, Senegalese, my new favorite third-world nationality, only the third to hold the honor, is the proud people of Mexico. Over the last two weeks, between working alongside Jim's various hired crews, eating at La Carretta or El Jinete almost every day, and working our yardsale yesterday, I have had more contact and interaction with Mexican people than ever before, and I must say that they are, on the whole, the most delightful sort of people I can name. They are a festive and musical people, and are always celebrating something, and I have yet to meet a Mexican who was not pleasant and enjoyable company. Of course the temperament of each individual varies just as anyone's does, but overall the Mexicans seem to be a jovial lot.

So why does our country have such a big problem with them? Most of what I've seen from the general populus is simple bigotry and racism, stemming from a fear of something different. Citizens of this country have had this response every time there has been a pattern of immigration from anywhere, including the Irish and Germans at the close of the nineteenth century, as well as Southern Europeans 1920's. Later, a major immigration of Asians occured as war raged in Korea and Vietnam. As recently as the 1990's, another mass migration movement came out of Eastern Europe due to the internal political struggles in that region. Most recently, though, has been the steady rise in immigration from Mexico and Central America. A person is an American citizen if they are born on American soil, born to parents who are citizens, or go through the process to apply for citizenship, but citizenship does not, in the eyes of most Americans, make you an American. These days we generally don't make any distinction between the different white races, and don't think anything about most white people unless they speak a different language or have an accent, but a hundred years ago, an Irish or German was easily identified and descriminated against. Skin color and physical characteristics are the easiest markers for immigrants, but whoever is fresh of the boat at the time is going to be isolated from the rest of society. Especially if they are older, people will keep speaking the same language, keep practicing their culture, and probably live in communities of other people who do too. The longer a group of people is in America, the whiter they are, and once a new group starts to flood in, the group will become more American. What I mean is that it didn't take long for the Germans and Irish to be incorporated into the culture because they were more like the contemporary Anglican Americans than the olive-skinned Italians and Greeks who started to show up, both in culture and physical appearance. Even now, Italians and Greeks several generations American have maintained bloodlines and culture, and are readily identifiable as Southern Europeans, while the Irish and German blood was bred right into the Anglican American pool. Methinks religion has a lot to do with that, as Italian Catholicism and Greek Orthodox Christianity (the original Protestants) are still not considered American like WASPs, but that's a different post. Asians are still Asians, even if they are Americans, until there is enough racial mixing to make it disappear like the Northern European blood mixed into the Anglican, and you can still pick out an Eastern European even though we think of them as white or Jewish. But despite all these different kinds of people running around the various centers of immigratory concentration (the Southern Peidmont for Germans, the Appalachains for Scots and Irish, California for Asians, Northern urban areas for Italians, etc), the newest lot to come in always gets it worst, and right now that's Hispanics, most of whom cross the border from Mexico.

So besides letting history take its course and let Spain finally take the West like they should have in the sixteenth century, and/or wait for the next big wave to come in from another part of the world so the Mexicans won't bother us so much, I have a couple of solutions in mind for the problem of Mexican immigration. The biggest concern is always economic, and Americans are concerned that Mexican immigrants willing to take bad jobs and work for less are stealing jobs and money from Americans. But of course if they didn't take our jobs, we'd just give them to them while they're still in Mexico, just like we exploit the little Bangladeshi kids. Either way hiring an immigrant of any variety saves money for the fat white guy who owns the company, and if there's more immigrants for hire, then a lesser fat white guy can hire them, too, and then maybe even the skinny white guys can get a crew of immigrants and eventually every American will own a little piece of Mexico, and isn't that what you fat American capitalists worried about jobs wanted anyway? So what we need to look at is why they come over in the first place. It's because Mexico is a hole, and they're way better off trying to make it here. But immigration's not the problem. Emmigration is. We're not suffering by their coming here, but Mexico is hurting for a whole generation leaving the country.
So here's something for everybody: Invest in Mexico. You pinko Commie filths who want to spread the money around to people who don't earn it get to help a broke-ass country full of them, you fiscal empirialists get to essentially buy a country for cheap, and best of all, you ignorant bigot rednecks get the Mexicans out of your backyard.
Why it will work: The Mexicans are a proud people who love their country and rich heritage, and if they can stay at home at all, they will. So if you're a fat white guy, pour your money into Mexican investments and maybe you'll help fix the place up. Free trade is the answer, and yes all the jobs will go to Mexico for cheap, but it all comes back around in the macrosystem of the world economy and everybody wins. So invest in Mexico and build it up until they're just like us, then they'll have no reason to come up here and destroy their homeland, and even though they'll have money, we'll still control it since the businesses are all American-owned. Essentially Mexico will become a part of America, at least in regards to the flow of money, and the same policy will work in our economic investments all over the world. So to all you closed-system socialist punks who think NAFTA is killing the American economy and we ought to restrict trade with other countries in order to boost American business, take a lesson from history and learn that restricting trade and jacking up tariffs has never helped anybody at all in any country in any economic or political situation at any time in history, and it almost always leads to war.

(These are private business investments, mind you, like I've talked about before - not government-sponsered programs. The last thing both countries need is either government playing with tax-payers' money.)

Would you believe somebody accused me of being self-centered the other day? I know I'm a cocky, tactless, egomaniacal jackass, but I am by no means self-centered. That particular character trait implies putting the self as the number one priority. If you know anything about me, you know I only care about other people. I don't give a damn about me. Why should I? When you've got an ego like mine, or if you're just as kickass as me, then you know you've got nothing to worry about concerning yourself because you've got everything on lock. Anyway, I have very specificly ranked priorities. Keep in mind that the rank of the priorities impies a willingness to sacrifice a lower one to get a higher one, not just a general list of what's important. My top priority, for which I would give up anything else on the list, is proving my point. Luckily I'm always right, and my points aren't hard to prove unless I'm dealing with an idiot. But even if I do have to give up getting something else I want just to prove I'm right, I will. The second priority, with which I know you are familiar, is comedy. If it's funny to somebody, even if it means giving up something else I want or looking like a damn fool, I'll do it. Usually I'm only entertaining myself, and usually my kind of comedy involves heavy, real-life stuff, I do it in the name of art. You'll find that both of these endeavors often involve serious long-term commitment to a project, and that makes it all the more worth it. People wonder why I waste my time on my little meddlings when I could mess around with tons of people and hardle take anytime. To that I say that I don't care what I could have. My time and effort are practically worthless to me; they're only of use when spent on other people. On projects using other people to prove a point or just for some comedy. So you see, all that matters to me are other people, never myself.

Let me tell you another story, and this is one you haven't heard. You havent heard it because it was just Saturday that I remembered it even happened, let alone its significance. And just as a forenote, should any of the parties involved catch wind of this printing, know that it's nothing against any of you or some big secret I've been trying to hide. Like I said, it was just a couple days ago that I realized what the hell even happened. Anway, on to the story.

At some point during the year 2000, an individual developed an attraction for me. Keep in mind this is way before I got into my business, so even this was new to me. I still have issues accepting my status and abilities, as it were, so you can imagine how much it freaked me out to hear that stuff back then. You know who else it freaks out to hear that stuff; I told her she needs to settle down and get used to it before she ends up like me. But I'll get back to that whenever this story gets to a point. So there was this girl; that wasn't so weird. The crazy part was how the whole thing happened. My perceptive abilities were not as in-tune as they have become, and she kept it quiet from me for months. It wasn't until late that summer, about the time high school was starting that I even found out. And it was from somebody else. She told me all about what the girl had been telling her, and what she had seen. Then, in retrospect, it all seemed so obvious, and I got my first lesson in what to look for. I've used those very lessons to my advantage as recently as last week. So for me it started then, at which point the third party mediated went between us try and get us together, probably just for her own amusement and not, as she said then, because she "wanted to see her best friend happy." My first problem was that apparently it was my sole responsibility to initiate conversation and activity every single time, and she didnt have to do anything but wait for me. A related problem is that this girl never really gave me anything I could use. Even though I'd never been in that situation before, I knew something was off when I didn't ever know anything about it. Usually I got my information from the third party, and usually I didn't care. She became the puppet master of both of us, telling me when and how and what to say to make things go the way she thought we wanted them, not knowing I was freaked out by the whole thing in the first place. Had been for herself, I wouldn't have minded (don't tell nobody but she's the one I always saw myself with), or had the girl been in charge and not a third party, the might have even worked out. But as it stood... well, let me paraphrase a typical conversation between the third party and myself, put into realistic dialogue for my character:

Me: Did you need something?
Her: Yea, you need to call ____.
Me: Why is that again?
Her: Because you're her boyfriend.
Me: Am I? And when was she planning to elighten me of this development?
Her: Just call her, okay? For me?
Me: She doesn't talk to me, even if I call her.
Her: That's just cause she likes you.
Me: That made negative sense. If she wants to talk to me and be my boyfriend and all this, then why can't she call me instead of getting you to go in and tell me everything I'm supposed to do?
Her: She doesn't tell me to; I just know she wants you to call her. She thinks if she calls you, she'll seem desperate.
Me: Ah, now it comes out. So she doesn't know you're telling me to call... she thinks I'm calling because I just want to, is that what you're doing, then?
Her: No, she knows I talk to you for her. We talk about you all the time.
Me: Really? That's kinda sad. But that still doesn't explain why you have to do her dirty work.
Her: Because I want to see my best friend happy.
Me: You're out of your mind. This whole damn system doesn't make any sense. You know what? I'm done here.

So there you have it. Finally, the revelation of why Watson feels the need to stick it to the system. Obviously, just like with religion and pop culture and everything else I hate, it was a series of personal experiences that left a bad taste in my mouth, but ulimately it was the research and exploration that followed that presented me no other choice than to reject the establishment. I believe in individuals, and my stance doesn't change no matter what political, philosophical, or social issue is at stake. The individual with the best abilities, born or acquired, will ultimately end up in the best situation. Help yourself before you help your friends, and make sure you're getting what you want out of life. Now, my business is about research and results, but that's always been secondary to getting what I want, then I have fun with the puppetry, working in and around the truth. This may sound like just the bigotted ramlings of somebody born and bred to be on top, but the people with the most to offer are going to get the most, and the ones of those with the ability to go out and get it without relying on friends are going to get even more. These people not only helped me figure out what I've got and how to use it, but also how far I can go if I do use it.

I told you I would get back to the other person I mentioned at the top of the show. Mostly I just wanted to pull those of you into this who didn't know me way back, and of course nobody reads this who did know me way back. But the reason I bring it up is because of why I think all this happened, and because I've seen it brewing in your region of the world for some time. I was assaulted in this way because the other parties involved saw that I would probably not be comfortable with a direct approach, added to the already shy nature of the one, and they took what they believed to be necessary precautions to help us both. I've talked about how much I hate being patronized before, and I stand by what I said about the dangers and problems caused by underestimating your counterpart. You've got to accept the facts and take your status for granted in order that you might properly assume it. And learn to accept your powers in order that you might focus and control them to get what you want, and not get just every old thing flying at you. Assume you're the best, and don't accept anything but it from anybody else, and you'll turn out alright, but if anybody has any reason to believe you are less than, even if they mean well, as in my case, it's just not going to work.

On a final note, the main reason it didn't work, and I knew this then as now, is that she was a good six inches taller than me. I don't care what the other details of the situation are, they could be perfect, but that will never ever work.

Another summer project! Even now that I'm a working man, in fact especially now that I'm a working man, I still need to have my fun. Not just any fun, mind you, my fun. But given the circumstances, I'm going to set up some parameters for this exercise before I find my victim(s) and get into it. The initial requirements for her are the same as for anybody I choose to associate myself with, and if you aren't aware, I set as high standards for my friends as I do for myself. I don't really have any specificications outside of the non-negotiable 5'6" rule, so beyond that I'll call it when I get to it, but y'all know how I roll. And of course she's got to be able to keep up with me intellectually, otherwise it just won't be worth it. Anyway, the bigger problem is finding said sweet little something. Naturally the game will be much different depending on the girl. I can think of several quality untapped sources that I already know, each of whom could create interestng developments and plenty of fun, but as we know, I'm only charming, entertaining, and interesting for two weeks, so for my game to be at it's peak, it's going to have to be somebody I don't know. And the added bonus of people I don't know is that I won't have to ever see them again if I don't want to. I imagine the best way to do this is first to find somebody who's down with what I do and in on it, and then get her to bring me one of her desperate but good-looking girlfriends. I know of a few who love playing match-maker, especially with an case like me. So my project can actually start out by letting all of you have the fun of finding me a project, just like the last two years when I cut some people loose to get me a prom date. Anyway, let's pretend I've found somebody, one way or another, what am I going for here? I'm serious when I talk about doing serious field research, and I'm only serious about having some fun with no call for commitment, especially with it being summer and going back to school in August and all. I'm here to break paradigms, not hearts; I never try deliberately to hurt people without it being simply a side-effect of my research. You can't make an omelete without breaking some eggs, and you can't make a new life-saving drug without killing some monkeys, and it's no different in the psychosocial researh I do. The results of my previous research have gotten me to where I now feel the need to put them into practice. If I can get somebody to bring me smebody new, I can drop some straight mack on it and finally prove to myself I haven't just been making everything up so far. They say you have to repeat your experiments over and over again to verify your results, so that's what I'm up to besides just for some fun. And of course if I can convert one more to my out-of-the-relationship-box reality, the world will be that much better. You might say "Watson, you alone can never possible make a difference in the world." but at least I will have made a world of difference to that one. So if you or a friend are going to be in the Winston-Salem area and want to be in a taping of an episode of the hit sitcom "WATson!", then bring your name and number by our studio and we'll see if you meet our eligibility requirements. The contest winner will recieve what everyone who has ever met me hopes to God they are never threatened with.

News from two days of construction work:

It turns out those four guys that are standing around for every one guy doing something really are just standing around. And they are absolutely necessary.

The reason nothing ever actually gets done on construction sites is because they get paid by the hour and not by the job.

Nothing is a toy, but anything can be.

It doesn't matter how old you get, how well you know each other, or the fact that you know all the other guys know what they're doing, guys will always try and impress each other by pointing out the obvious and offering tidbits of advice on how to do whatever the other guy is doing.

You don't all have to speak the same language to get the job done.

Lift from the knees, not from the back.

Get your hours in while there's still a job to be done. Work comes day by day.

The shoddy job that you think was the fault of the guy you hired was actually the fault of unexperienced, slack-ass assistants that guy hired for the summer.

We don't want to be jackhammering your neighbor's driveway at 8 in the morning any more than you want us there.

Those four guys standing around are on the clock, lunch is on the clock, and if I'm driving around for work, drive time is on the clock and the gas is a business expense separate from my paycheck.

I'm going to get an education and a desk job.

Don't think I've disappeared, I've just been neglecting the Desk in favor of the Office. In addition to the project described in the previous post (the contents of which have recieved major changes), I've been revamping the whole site, cleaning it up and working out glitches. The whole focus of the site has shifted to favor the new backpacking guide pages, and personally I like the direction this projet is taking the site. I've added a lot of new content with these new pages, but the majority of the work I've done (writing content isn't that hard) has been in the way of redoing all the linking between the pages of the site and between the site and other sites, as well as working on other coding issues. So not only have I brought a new focus to the site, but also gotten back to the original purpose of it, which was to have some fun learning about html and internet stuff while having an excuse to ramble about backpacking. Eventually I'll get around to making real blog posts again, but probably not till after I'm done with the backpacking guide and maybe those two stories I've been meaning to write. And by the way, if repetition passes for an artistic way of writing, consider the Office edition of "Nothing Special" my official attempt at an stylistically artistic short story. So I apologize to those of you who still don't care, but I know there are many of my readers who are avid backpackers, or who have spoken to me about wanting to take an interest in it. I know several of you were talking about getting into some hiking this summer and specifically asked for my tutelage, which thrills me to an end you do not know, so I'm hoping at least that audience is still out there. I'm going to assume no feedback is good enough and means I'm not doing anything you find terribly repulsive and I can go right ahead. Otherwise it means everyone has stopped reading. Regardless, I'm doing this for my own amusement, but I hope I can bring a few of you along for the ride, as this is my shot to bring some of you the Blaze that has brought me so much and made me who I am.

Summer project! Here comes a series of posts because that seems to be popular, and because it'll make sure I have material for a number of posts. The subject will be backpacking, and the format instructional. So today I'll give you the introduction and tentative table of contents for Watson's Guide to Hobbyist Backpacking. I may or may not post all the chapters here in their order, or I might just add it as part of the Office. In fact that sounds like a better idea, as both the subject and format are more appropriate to that medium, and I can do more with it there, as well as save space here for things I usually use this for. So it's settled. I'll give you a little taste here and I'll let you know as I write and post each chapter on the Office. I think this'll be a more productive endeavor for me than my Liturgical Equity ever was, after all I do feel more important writing in this style than in the stories. I've actually got the time now and the material and knowledge base to finish this one, too. It looks like the target audience for this book is going to be people with an interest but little experience in backpacking. It is this audience that gives me the greatest freedom to describe in detail the entire process from the most basic steps but also discuss at length the intricacies of this activity that go beyond the physical act of walking through the woods. It will be by no means a comprehensive or official guide, but rather it is the knowledge base I have accumulated through experience, targeted towards a specific audience for a specific purpose. It will include much of my personal experiences and preferences which may contradict other sources, as well as the generally accepted methods within the backpacking community. So if you don't give a damn about what I have to say about backpacking, I won't waste Desk space with it, but it will be on the Office for people to see. You can help me out with this by letting me know if I've left out something important as I post each chapter if you're a fellow experienced hiker, or if you're not, you can still help me by telling me if any of the terminology or anything is not explained to your satisfaction and understanding. So if anybody decides they care, this is my summer project, contents subject to change:

Watson's Guide to Hobbyist Backpacking
Chp 1: Welcome
Chp 2: Choosing Your Trek
Chp 3: Equipment
Chp 4: Packing
Chp 5: Hiking
Chp 6: Trail Etiquette
Chp 7: Farewell

Should be fun (for me).

I suddenly remembered a story I have to tell you. I just got in from another of my cathartic late night drives and part of it took me through a random stretch of fog and I was reminded of this story.

It's spring of 2004 and we're on one of several training hikes for Philmont. It was a troop trip to the Carver's Gap area, and there were at least three different crews taking different routes based on experience of the boys. Each crew's route, however, afforded each the night at the Overmountain Shelter, or the Barn. The events of this trip were responsible for at least three trail names, as I recall. First was Thomas, who decided to lose his retainer in the brush on the side of the mountain, and, through my complex thought process, became Gumdrop. And the Irishman whose real name I still don't know was dubbed Icepick after the icecicles forming on his cheeks and brow, and the general assumption that he would be the type to scramble up Everest with nothing but an icepick. Later, Panama would recieve his name because of the hat he always wore, but mostly because we felt he needed a name in order that he should feel more included in the crew spirit. Anyway, this was a Philmont training trek, and so our fearless leaders decided that we ought to follow full Philmont procedures for setting up camp, according to their interpretation and not that of Strawberry and myself, the two who had previously been. They thought it a good idea that we should set up the dining fly just like we would at Philmont and told us how. Then we did it like we knew it should be done, much to their distress. Our sister crew set theirs up a few yards away in some convoluted fashion that hardly stood through dinner. In the morning we found it quite down the hill. The area at the barn is a flat, narrow strip of grass situated on the side of the mountain. The grass had just been cut and on both slopes the land was clear of most large growth for some distance. Beyond the barn, the underbrush got thicker and large trees appeared. Looking out from the barn, one can see down a beautiful Appalachain valley, complete with Christmas tree farms and the Blue Ridge Parkway. As far as mountain vistas go, this is maybe not be my favorite, but is doubtless a fine one. We set up our dining fly right next to the up slope, facing it. The back of the fly sloped to the ground and faced out away from the slope. Of course I would not discuss a dining fly in such great detail if it were just a dining fly. Again because we were hiking under the guise of Philmont training, we were instructed not to sleep in the barn, as is the custom for both through hikers and weekenders, but rather to set up our tents in the narrow feild before it. This seemed quite absurd, as they should know we are all quite familiar with setting up our tents. So, in the true smart-ass style we sport (you know how we do), we decided to defy them only through technicality. We did not sleep in the barn, as was the rule, but they never said said we had to sleep in our tents. We used all our tents flies as well as those from the boys sleeping in the barn who also did not set up their tents, and we fashioned a rather large lean-to with the dining fly as the base. We put the flies up and out around all sides of the dining fly, extending it out both ways and up the hill for a roof. Then we took ou groundcloths and layed them for the floor. If I remember correctly, there were at least five of us in there (not everyone decided to participate in our little exercise), and it was not at all crowded. Truly this construct would stand as a monument to our skills and expertise as woods engineers. We had some problems though the night with the wind and such knocking the flies loose of the poles, but a little duct tape and a little apathy took care of that without being too much more than a mild neusance. I was much more displaced a few years earler when the massive wooden cross-beam of a heavy canvas tent fell on me during a storm at night a few years earlier, or in Florida when the Spanish moss in the tree above us caught fire from a lightning strike. Have you ever experienced a genuine a legitimate fear for your own life? Not this time, it's just the mist at Carver's, the ever-present drifting mist that did its best to generally soak us as well as pool in the roof fly and pour on one or another of us every time the wind blew. None of us really slept that night. We all did that drifting in and out of being half-asleep thing because we were so cold and wet and pissed off at the pole that kept falling down and dumping water on us even though it wasn't raining. Naturally, though, the leaders know we slept like logs. We made such a big deal out of making this thing and about not doing what they said just because it was what they said that we couldn't back out of this thing now. No, we had to stick it out in there or we'd never hear the end of it. But that's not the story I came here to tell you. I told you that story to tell you this story. I got up to piss sometime during the night, and I went out into the trees behind the barn a ways. Going out all I could think of was how cold and miserable and having to piss I was at the time, but the trip back to the hovel was quite a different thing. I strode through the mist of the silent forest hearing not but the crunchy squish of my steps. As I passed the barn towards the open feild, I saw the brightest darkness there could be. I turned to my right, where the down slope and that pretty view would be and saw nothing. I hadn't thought that nothing could exist, that there could be a nothingness so clear and light and yet so very cold. I've been in a cave, where there is absolute darkness, but even that was not this kind of nothing. In the pitch black you don't see anthing because you ca't see anything. But there is a difference, I think between not seeing anything and seeing something that is nothing. Out there that night, I actually saw nothing; as if it were a thing to see, I saw it and I felt it. I could see things within a few feet of me, but beyond that the whole of existence was consumed in a blinding blanket of light or darkness, I do not know which. In the face of this nothingness, and the exhausted delirium I was in, I would not have known there was existence. The cold pierced me and paralyzed me. I looked deep into the nothing and it reached its icy hand into me, and yet I was warm, hot even, in my mind. I felt my body shiver, but knew only an absence of temperature of sensation. I could not move, either because of the cold or because I did not want to turn my back to this thing that was nothing. There's no telling how long I stood there captive, as I do not know how long I was ever sleeping before I got up, and in general I have a terrible sense of time (gives me my incredible patience), before I finally wandered back to the lean-to and went straight to sleep until the morning.